


conglomeration

by Magpied_Spider



Category: Deltora Quest - Emily Rodda
Genre: Comment Fic, Gen, Meta Fic, semi-meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 19:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6622513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magpied_Spider/pseuds/Magpied_Spider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ols: how deep does a transformation go? A collection of headcanons and semi-justified thoughts on Dain, and Grade Three Ols in Deltora.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>A declaration: If given the choice, Dain will choose a dagger over any other kind of weapon. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	conglomeration

**Author's Note:**

> ok so i found this writing book from when i was... probably about 12? and there was this sort of comment-fic type thing about Dain and Ols and Deltora Quest and i started reworking it? and it sort of kept the same format but changed the content a bit and expanded it slightly but yeah. 6 years later, here's a deltora quest fic.

A truth: Dain had been fascinated by Tora – he hadn’t exaggerated, not in the least, though his motives had not been something he would or could admit to his companions. He wanted to see if he would be able to enter the enchanted city, to see if his master had truly been perfect in his creation… to see if _he_ had truly understood his own transformation, if his human form was indistinguishable from the real.

A possibility: the tunnel into Tora did _something_ , it affected him _somehow_ , though Dain suppresses any un-ol-ish feelings, shakes them off, strong in the knowledge that while the magic of the Torans was powerful, the power of his master was stronger still.

An assertion: Ols have a language that is uniquely theirs, shared between the three grades – a language conveyed in movements, in minute transformations, in pitches higher than their prey can detect. It is rudimentary in many respects: a collection of commands, various inflections of _what, where, when?_ – very rarely does an Ol below Grade Three consider a _why_?

An assumption: Any Ol can recognize another of its kind, no matter the Grade.

A warning: for Ols attempting to blend in, this can be very dangerous.

 _Fellow_! Calls the Two, disguised as a bird. Dain makes no outward reaction, but sends a whistle back: _stay_ — _don’t-leave-your-post_.

It whistles back a phrase that is difficult to translate into words, but if it were, would run along the lines of _will you kill these—why haven’t you killed these—can I help_ , but with an undercurrent of _if you were strong enough, you wouldn’t need my help, but you haven’t killed them already, so you must need it_.

 ** _Stay_** , Dain repeats. There is a long game at work; plans within plans within plans, threads that will come together no matter which way events fall, but even so, there’s no call to reveal himself for the sake of a Two’s pride.

A proposition: Dain, like many of the Resistance, like most Deltorans anywhere, will flee for shelter at the sight of an Ak-Baba. There have been some actions he has taken, which he will defend with the knowledge of hindsight and with the knowledge he had then, but there is a difference between explaining oneself to one’s master and one of his creatures. (Dain, being one of those creatures himself, is in the best position to know this.)

Kree takes far more advantage of this than a bird should, flying closely past Dain and deriving some kind of perverse satisfaction from his reactions. Leif can scold the bird all he likes, but the only human whose opinion matters to the bird is Jasmine’s, and she doesn’t seem to understand why anyone would find the behaviour bothersome.

A well-known-fact: no-one has escaped, or will ever escape the Shadowlands.

Dain is still divided as to his opinion of Doom. On the one hand, no-one escapes the Shadowlands. On another, he fights like a man with experience in the pits: he fights like a man who knows that there will be no reward for a win - bar that he will live another day - but is willing to take that as a prize in itself. On a third hand – Dain can grow as many hands as he wants – Doom knew about Grade Three Ols.

The whole point of a Grade Three is that their transformations are perfect, their disguises indistinguishable from that which they duplicate – no one speaks of Grade Threes beyond the Shadowlands, for it is the ignorance of Deltorans of them that allows them to walk unknown among them.

A postulation: An Ol’s disguise is only as good as its understanding of what its transformation should be.

A Grade One, for instance, rarely is able to understand the form it should take – they can imitate animals well enough, but cannot regulate their temperature, and when transforming into humans, do not seem to understand that a mouth does not merely function as a place where sound comes out, but where food goes in. This fundamental lack of understanding is what makes it so difficult for it to hold a form: as soon as it forgets to consciously concentrate on the shape of its hand, or leg, or face, that shape will begin to distort into the natural form.

A Grade Two understands that food or drink can go in, but has no understanding as to how it is expelled – and its concentration can only last so long, eventually the Tremor rising through its entire body as it renews its form.

A Grade Three… Dain knows every part of his body, from the inner parts of his digestive system to the way that the blood pumps through his veins, warming his hands and spilling out whenever his skin is broken.

An impression: Dain knows Doom’s fighting style like he knows his own skeletal structure, and for the same reason: necessity. He will fight the man, someday – it is inevitable – and when he does, Dain knows he will need every advantage he can get.

Jasmine shares so many traits with the man it’s almost uncanny; when Dain fought her in the arena, he gave her a few opportunities before she took the one she did.

He lost deliberately.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

A declaration: If given the choice, Dain will choose a dagger over any other kind of weapon. He can make one himself – make it a part of himself, just as he can create clothes or false injuries or alter his hair – but it is model of a dagger found on his travels.

Well. He says “found”. A bandit, thinking Dain to be just another frail human, tried to rob him on the road one day, and Dain took the dagger he wielded as a… he’s not sure what, exactly. A memento? A reminder of his own mortality, or of the mortality he pretends?

A convenience, Dain justifies to himself. After all, while a crossbow is an excellent weapon, it has a great deal of moving parts, and takes a great deal of concentration to create. A dagger is simple in comparison, but no less effective.

A note: Ols do not need to eat food; their sustenance comes from the magic from which they were created, from the air around them, from the sun that shines upon them.

Grade Three Ols, with working digestive systems and tastebuds and human bodies indistinguishable from one that had never been an Ol at all, can eat, and even gain energy from the experience, although it is still by no means necessary.

Dain’s favourite spice is cinnamon.

A thought: Grade Threes have a greater sense of self-preservation than their brother Ols. That’s not… entirely accurate: to have a sense of self-preservation, one must have a sense of self, and Grade Ones barely have even that. Grade Twos do, in a sense, but they have little ability to apply cause to effect, to see the greater picture, to ignore one enemy so that three more will fall into a trap.

A pronouncement: Dain was human enough to touch the belt, just as he was human enough to enter Tora. Nothing he could think of could explain it, and a strange sense of terror gripped him whenever he thought of it.

He held it with the dagger whenever he could, unable to accept the thought that it might burn him at any moment; unable to justify why it was _not_ burning him to himself, let alone his master.

An observation: Dain dislikes high places. It comes from having one of his fellows killed by falling – well, the sudden stop at the bottom _after_ falling.

There is one disadvantage to knowing your own form so well: when one comes to a situation where transforming is the best thing to do, it’s surprisingly easy to forget _how_. A Grade One could just turn into a crude approximation of a bird and glide away, but a Grade Three would have to know the muscles and tendons and the precise aerodynamics, and by the time it had worked them out, it has already landed on the ground.

A possibility: Dain could have chosen the resistance, the humans – chosen _Leif_ – over the loyalty owed to the Shadow Lord.

On the one hand, he had a surrogate family: rebels drawn together through necessity, through shared fighting and experiences, through a willingness to stand with each other against impossible odds. He had seen what the Shadow Lord had done to these people – and he was human enough that he _cared_.

Any emotion should have been a warning sign – his disguise should be perfect, true, but not so true that he could not distinguish _himself_ what was false and what was real – but it was the emotion that he felt for those questing for the belt that hit him the hardest.

(The thought terrifies him, whenever he thinks about it too hard.)

On the other hand, he had a creator who had given him sentience, who had given him the ability to understand and make choices, and then never gave him any; who was cruel to those Dain had grown to understand and threatened death at the possibility of any deviation from the plans he had laid.

The choice, had it occurred to him, would have been an easy choice to make.

(Although how to reveal himself would be another question entirely, because perfect disguise or not, word would get out and another Ol would eventually betray him to his companions.)


End file.
